


As long as you need (I'm here)

by Anonymous



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bus Kids - Freeform, F/M, Philinda - Freeform, Post-Episode: s04e21 The Return, Post-Season/Series 04, Protective Phil Coulson, Season 05 Finale non compliant, ignore season 5, poor may
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24398824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When May comes out of the framework, Coulson knows something's wrong immediately. She has movement, speech, and memory problems, soon to be diagnosed as muscular atrophy. Feeling vulnerable and weak at the Playground, Coulson moves with her to a house on the beach to help her recover, with their pseudo daughter popping by constantly.A story about healing, and lots of Philinda feels. The plot is angsty, but it's filled with fluffy moments and scenes between Momma May TM and the Bus Kids, them taking care of her after she protected them for so many years.Updating semi-daily.
Relationships: Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Melinda May, Phil Coulson & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 17
Kudos: 67
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Out of the framework and into a hell

**Author's Note:**

> \- I did so much research on muscle/disuse atrophy for this fic. It doesn't show much in this chapter but I tried to make it as accurate as possible.
> 
> \- 1 more day until I cry because of Philinda and Season 7!
> 
> \- This chapter + the next is them getting out of the situation 5x21 left them in and defeating Aida. Then the recovery and love and fluff and protective Coulson begins.
> 
> <3

  


Everyone had gotten out of the framework okay, except for Mace- and Melinda.

When Phil blinked open groggily and got hit with a brick wall of memories, some painful and some happy, he fumbled out of loose straps, pulled the tubes off of him and staggered off of the hard vertical bed. Next to him was May, looking pale and thin and making his heart run cold.

He walked up to her, hoping to any god out there that she was alive; that his Melinda was alive and not brain dead. “C’mon, Mel, you can do this,” he whispered. “Jump! Please, just jump.” 

Phil watched with bated breath as she looked deathly still, her chest rising and falling shallowly.

And then her eyes shot open as she gasped for air.

Mixed with his relief, Phil knew that something was wrong immediately. She collapsed into his arms and he eased them both to the floor. His legs were trembling from disuse, and he’d been in the framework for less than half the amount of time as her. She took in shaky breaths while clawing at his shirt, burying her head into his chest.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he soothed quietly. Her chest spasmed and she clenched the fabric tighter. “Phil…” she mumbled as their eyes met, and his blood ran cold. Her eyes were wide, and any mask she’d use to cover up her emotions was gone, replaced by raw fear. “You’re okay, you’re safe,” he repeated, not believing a word he was saying. She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her head on him as he heard Fitz inhale sharply and stumble out of his stretcher muttering a stream of angry and confused curses.

“May, I’m so sorry,” Phil murmured into her hair, watching, alarmed, as her chest rose and fell so shallowly you could hardly tell she was breathing. Now that she was practically still against him, he could really tell how thin she’d become from malnutrition. After Aida had killed Radcliffe, she must’ve found a loophole to protect them and stopped feeding them. Even through the long sleeved black shirt, her ribs were obvious, poking out sharply through the fabric, and her face was gaunt and pale. Her bony elbows dug into his chest, but he could barely feel them.

Fitz stumbled to the wall and slid down it with a despairing groan, but Phil barely paid attention to him. Melinda blinked slowly, then murmured, painfully slow and picking each word out deliberately, “Phil… Aida…” Her speech was labored and her mouth had trouble forming the words, but he could tell what she meant. He looked up to see Aida in her grey secretary-who-slept-with-her-boss dress still hooked up to the framework. He set his mouth in a thin line, knowing what had to be done. It was the damn robot’s fault that Melinda was hurting right now, and that Mace was dead, and Fitz was being ripped apart from the inside. She was going to pay.

Phil gently lifted his partner to the floor, resting her head on the stone, before standing up and looking around the room for something sharp. He rummaged through drawers around the room, finding a row of scalpels that made him more than a little sick. He grabbed the longest one and focused on Aida’s still body. Walking up to her, without a second thought, he dug the blade into her skin as blood pooled onto his knuckles. He pulled it around her neck in a circle, like cutting an avocado. (Avocados were forever ruined for him, he decided.) After very nearly having her head displaced off her neck, he swung his fist at her head, knocking it to the floor with satisfaction. The wires in her neck sparked as more synthetic blood poured from inside her metal skull.

“Bloody _ hell _ ,” Fitz retched behind Phil. He turned around, feeling the automatic revulsion that he’d always had in the framework when seeing the Doctor laced with worry for his team member, the little engineer who’d been family from day one. “Something tells me none of this is over,” he sighed.

Melinda was on the floor, unmoving, so before helping Fitz, he quickly checked her pulse. It was there, but faint. He turned to the young agent, who was panting with panic, an arm leaning on a side counter. “It’s okay, we’re back, everybody’s… safe,” he lied. He wasn’t sure what was happening with his partner but her situation was causing something dark to rise up within him.

Fitz backed up from Phil, shaking, eyes wide with horror. “What have I done?” he asked frantically. 

“Don’t blame yourself. The framework messes with everybody’s head.”

“No- but I- I killed people,” he stuttered, spinning wildly to face the wall, running his hand through his curly hair. “They weren’t real-” He tried to say, but Fitz interrupted him.

“Agnes was real. And… M-Mace…” The young man looked over and began breathing even harder. Phil followed his line of sight to see an extra empty bed. It didn’t take a detective to deduce who’d been there. Fitz covered his mouth with his hand and leaned heavily onto his knees. “I ordered the air strike that killed Mace,” he said faintly. He made eye contact back with the older man, eyes seeing the ghosts of his victims, red and raw. He staggered over to a chest and put most of his weight on it, barely able to stand.

After a few agonizing seconds where Phil had no idea what to say to him, Fitz looked over at May, who was still laying on the floor, curled into a ball, her eyes open but glassy in a way that chilled Phil’s core. “She- she’s alive?” he asked desperately. Phil nodded. “But she’s having trouble moving and speaking, I think from disuse of her body.”

Fitz stared at the woman before letting out something that seemed to be a cross between a whimper and a groan. “Muscular atrophy, or disuse atrophy. She must have muscular atrophy, it’s protein degradation because her muscles weren’t used. They, along with many body systems, stopped synthesising the right materials, so her muscles, speech, and memory are all gone to hell,” he diagnosed bitterly. “It’s what Simmons feared would happen.”

Phil tried not to think too hard about what Fitz just said, lest he start panicking. Instead he focused on the room, his eyes inspecting everything at their disposal to escape. Daisy and Simmons were both missing, and Mack was still in the framework. He and Fitz could barely stand, and their greatest fighter was-  _ Don’t think about it _ \- incapacitated.

“Do you- d’you hear that?” Fitz stuttered, interrupting his thoughts. Phil turned to his terrified face and listened for anything unusual. Something outside was clicking and whirring… “Someone’s outside,” he realized. The whirring stopped, then someone gasped loudly. Fitz’s head shot up. “My machine, the- the machine in the- framework,  _ Coulson _ … it was to make h-her a new body,” he said quietly. Phil stared at him. “So you think she just made herself a new body?” He asked, regretting every single life decision he’d ever made. Fitz nodded. Phil cursed, looking back at Melinda. “I’m- I’m a bad person,” Fitz moaned, sinking to the floor.

The only door coming into the room opened, and in walked Aida, wearing a grey robe and a bright and pleasant smile, which was… odd. And terrifying. Phil backed up to shield his partner from her view as she stepped closer to Fitz, still looking jovial. “O-Ophelia?” Fitz asked, dumbfounded.

“I am so happy to see you,” she said breathlessly. “This… is what happiness feels like,”

“She’s not a robot anymore,” Phil said quietly. He backed up, and stealthily reached for the gun on the table that he’d noticed when surveying the room. “She bleeds just like us.” Fitz walked slowly towards Aida, getting in the way of Phil’s potential shot. “Now you can touch the real me,” she told Fitz softly, her eyes shining. He reached up to touch her face, seemingly entranced. Phil aimed the gun at the two of them. “Fitz, get out of the way,” he growled, but it was like the man couldn’t hear him. 

Aida snatched Fitz’s hand and held it up to her chest. “Feel my heartbeat, Leopold. Touch my skin.”

“Fitz, move!” Phil shouted.

“We can make this world anything we want,” Aida told him lovingly. Before Phil had a chance to shoot, she grabbed Fitz and teleported away with a flash similar to Gordon’s. He threw the gun down in defeat. “She’s inhuman? Can we get one break?” he sighed.

“Guess they weren’t assessing powers at Hydra so much as collecting them,” a deep, familiar voice sounded behind him. Phil turned around to see Mack, to his relief. He must’ve gotten out of the framework during the commotion. His eyes were shining.

“You got out,” Phil said in relief. He honestly had been expecting the man to stay because of Hope. “Yeah,” Mack said, a melancholy air now surrounding him. “Daisy reminded me what I had here. Yoyo, you guys.” He shrugged, almost as if he could shrug off the grief Phil could tell he was drowning in. “Right now, let’s focus on escape.” He looked around and almost immediately zeroed in on Melinda’s limp form. “What-”

“Muscular atrophy, Fitz thinks.” Phil said grimly. “Simmons suspected it would happen. She’s gone with little nutrition and no movement for months. I think… her body forgot how to work,” he said helplessly. Mack put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Coulson, we’ll help her, I promise. We need to get out, first.”

“Well, we did step one. We’re lucky we got out of the framework at all.”

“It wasn’t luck.” In two seconds, Phil had the gun scooped up from the floor and aimed, and Mack assumed a defensive stance. The Russian leaned leisurely on the entrance frame. “You are only alive because I had restrictions put on me. Fortunately,” He curled his fingers into fists and stepped further into the room, “Those restrictions have just been lifted.”

Phil wasted no time in shooting Petrov in the chest. Blood pooled from the four shots, but to Phil’s surprise, he just advanced on the two of them. He grabbed Phil’s arms, grabbed the gun and spun him and pushed him against the wall, pressing the cold barrel up to his neck. “You are nothing without a ‘Shield’ to hide behind,” he snarled. 

Phil gritted his teeth, then moved his hand an inch to the right under the Russian’s unyielding hold on his forearms, resulting in the pressure point for his Shield to be pressed hard against his wrist. Instantly, the blue shield deployed, cutting straight through The Russian’s head. The robotic body collapsed to the floor, orange goo pouring out of the place where his face had been.

Mack whistled. Phil couldn’t resist saying, “That’s not all they're good for.” He quickly crossed over to Melinda to check her pulse again; nothing had changed. Tears had begun to pool at her eyes. They flitted back and forth under hooded eyelids, frantic, so he closed them gently, hyper aware that that was something you did once somebody was dead.

A door slammed outside of the room, so Mack and Phil exchanged glances before hurrying to check. “Hell,” Mack sighed, seeing Petrov leaning on a railing a couple of yards away, and another one crossing in front of him, swinging a wrench. Immediately, Phil slammed the button for the door to their room to close. 

Mack sighed. “It’s good to be back.”


	2. Aida needs to die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alternate ending to Aida's defeat.
> 
> <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of a lot of plot crammed into not a lot of words, so apologies, but I just wanted to get to the Philinda and beach house fluff already. Which is next chapter, wooh!

Mack dug through the lockers lining a wall and brought out two pairs of boots that they’d been captured with. He handed Phil his pair and he slid them on, tying the laces before joining him to look for something useful. 

“The door is industrial and I messed with the controls, it should be enough to keep them out,” Coulson informed the man as he looked out of the only window in the room, which faced pure blue and darkness, tiny fish flitting by in the murky water. Suddenly, a thought struck him. “I know where we are. I think. In the 50’s, the Soviets built top secret submarine refueling stations under oil rigs. This might be one of them.”

“What, you know that from the one fish that’s passed by?” Mack asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I know from being a history teacher. I was kind of a cold war buff,” he replied. “Maybe we should just wait. Daisy and Jemma should be on their way in the Zephyr.”

“You think they’ll find this place?” Mack asked doubtfully. He shrugged. “They found it in the framework. I think Daisy said she had a couple of agents with her too.”

“What are they waiting for, though? If they wanted us dead, they could’ve just flooded the place,” Mack mused, grunting happily when he found a hammer.

Before they got a chance to continue, a pipe above them burst and began spraying high pressure water into the room, blinding them as alarms began to blare. “We need to get out!” Mack yelled as their ankles quickly were surrounded by a rapidly-rising pool of water. Phil quickly scooped Melinda up into his arms, turning her face into his chest to keep her from inhaling water.

Another pipe began spurting out water as the room flashed red. Phil could barely see Mack through the torrent of water coming down from the ceiling, drenching them. The water was already at their knees. He slammed the door open to reveal the outside hallway void of Petrov, but filling up with dirty water quickly. He, Melinda and Mack forged through the room to the exit, water hitting their faces so hard it was blinding them. 

They got through the door, choking on the liquid and pushing through water at waist height, and then-

Quiet. The three of them collapsed onto the floor with a splash, Phil maintaining his firm grip on his partner as he tucked her close, suddenly realizing that water wasn’t suffocating them anymore. He looked around wildly for Mack, gasping. He found him a few feet away on his knees, to his relief, before realizing somebody was with the large man. Yoyo.

Where did she come from?

He kept looking, now turning his gaze to their surroundings to see that they were safe in the dry Zephyr; Jemma and Fitz and Daisy all rushing forwards to help the three of them. He gently but quickly laid Melinda on the wet floor, checking for a pulse with bated breath, then sighing in relief when he found one.

“Coulson?” Daisy asked softly, putting a hand on his soaked shoulder. He grabbed it and squeezed, not tearing his eyes from May. “Jemma, where’s-”

“Right here, sir,” she kneeled down next to him with an oxygen mask that she quickly placed on the older woman’s mouth and nose. “As I feared, isn’t it?” She asked him quietly. “At least some form of atrophy?”

Phil nodded, using his free hand to grab Melinda’s limp one. Daisy looked between the both of them. “What?  _ Atrophy _ ? What’s that? Jemma, is she okay? Why isn't she moving, Coulson,” she asked frantically.

He finally looked up at both of their worried eyes, vaguely aware of movement around them. Daisy was breathing heavily. “Coulson?” She asked softly.

“She-” his throat constricted. “We need to get her to a bed, sir,” Jemma told him. He nodded and lifted her back up, following Daisy to the med bay while Jemma stayed behind with Fitz.

He draped her gently onto the hospital bed, letting her go while Daisy stood behind him. 

“She didn’t use her muscles for weeks, so she developed... disuse atrophy; I think Fitz called it. She’s got- problems moving, and…” he trailed off helplessly as water trailed down his body, leaving a puddle on the floor.

Daisy made a tiny choked noise, then backed out of the small room without saying anything. There was a short flash, and then somebody started yelling, causing his head to snap up from watching his partner. Reluctantly, he left her alone, running out to the main area where he saw Aida holding Jemma in a choke hold while Fitz looked on desperately. Daisy was watching her with a murderous look in her eye, likely mirroring his own.

“Aida, please! Remember the good feeling you just felt? Let’s- Let’s go back to that, and let her go,” Fitz was pleading. Aida shook her head. “No,  _ Leopold _ . Jemma is intruding on our relationship! She’s trying to steal you!” She snarled. Jemma whimpered.

Daisy hissed. “ _ Nobody  _ touches my friends and gets away with it.” With Aida looking at Fitz, the young woman quickly advanced on the LMD and placed her hands on either side of the robot’s head, starting a quake that caused Aida to gasp in pain and release a gasping Jemma. Daisy kept quaking the robot as hard as she could with both hands; the pressure causing Aida’s skin to peel off as she screamed and collapsed to the floor. Her pain tolerance was non-existent in her new body.

A puddle of wires and skin glowing orange was all that was left of the robot as Daisy staggered back into Phil; he caught her and looped her arms around his as he gently lowered her to the floor. She sighed against him then whimpered. He lifted up one of his arms and cursed inwardly at the bruises dotting her skin from the extreme quakes she’d created without a gauntlet. 

“Simmons?” He asked desperately, who had already recovered and rushed over to Daisy. “I’ll get her a cast, sir,” she told him. They moved the girl to lean against a wall, and then Phil turned his attention to the mess that had taken place in the Zephyr.

“What the hell happened here?”

Fitz said that Aida’d wanted to run away with him, but he convinced her to save the three of them in the oil rig. Then Aida said she loved him but he’d responded saying he loved Jemma, causing her to go berserk. “Luckily the Zephyr has the quantum matter dissonance devices we set up in case another Gordon appeared, so she couldn’t teleport out or use most of her powers,” Fitz explained, still looking frazzled. 

“What about the Russain, Petrov?” 

“She said she killed him.” 

“Can we take her word for it?” He asked doubtfully. Fitz nodded. “She was genuinely angry with him.”

“What’s the situation on the ground?” He addressed Piper and Davis. They shook their heads grimly. “We’re fugitives. May’s LMD blew up the Playground right before Daisy and Jemma entered the playground.”

Phil sighed. Everybody was looking for him about what to do next. “Right. How much fuel do we have left before we just plummet?”

“About 5 hours, sir,” Davis reported. 

“There’s a second base in New York that Mace and I established. We should be able to get there before we run out of fuel; I have allies that can help in addition to the agents stationed there. For now, everyone needs some rest to cope and come to terms with what just happened. We’ll debrief once we land.” The agents nodded, relief visible in their faces, and walked off to the Zephyr bunks slowly; Jemma holding Fitz, reassuring him that what he’d done wasn’t his fault.

Daisy pushed herself up from her position against the wall, wincing at her fractures in her arms that Jemma had splinted. “We beat her.” She said with disbelief.

“You beat her,” Phil corrected. She shrugged wearily. “She was distracted by making googly eyes at Fitz anyway, blech. And… I was pissed. It’s her fault May…” she swallowed. “And Fitz…”

“Once we get situated in the base, we’ll sort it out, I promise.” he replied, still with a constant fist in his gut about Melinda. “I’m going to go stay with her. You need some sleep.”

She nodded without a fight, her eyes already closing. She headed off to the bunks, leaving him alone in the control room. He quickly left the silence to go check on his partner.

He sat quietly next to her, feeling fatigued but unable to sleep, keeping his eyes on her small body, just in case something went wrong.

Eventually, he turned on one of the computers in the room and began to read up on muscular atrophy as much as he could. He would be ready for her, no matter what. He would be there to support her and help her recover. Because she was going to recover.

She had to recover.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I LIED IM SORRY THE FLUFF STARTS IN CHAPTER FOUR ):
> 
> Please forgive me <3

After establishing their positions and a faint semblance of normalcy in the new base, Phil spent most of his waking hours by Melinda’s side in a room reserved for her on the medical floor. He wasn’t sure what to do as he watched her chest struggle to rise and fall. He kept himself together only by the thought that he needed to keep it together to help her, a woman so strong trapped inside her body.

“She’ll need extensive physical and speech therapy,” Jemma explained on their first night in New York. “Sir, I don’t recommend she stay here,” she said gently. “The stress of the base, and being surrounded by so many people, it could cause a sensory overload, among other problems.”

He turned to her, holding Melinda’s limp hand. “What do I do?” he asked. He’d do anything. Whatever it took.

“Take her off base to a safe house,” she suggested. “Though if you plan on staying with her, she’ll need constant care, and if you’re director-”

“Then I’ll resign,” he answered instantly. His job, his  _ life _ , meant  _ nothing _ next to Melinda. Jemma gaped at him. “Sir-”

“I’ll do anything for her, Jemma,” he told her quietly. He’d do anything for the woman he loved; his partner in more ways than one.

She seemed to protest, then nodded. “But who will replace you?” 

Phil turned back to Melinda. “I’ll schedule a briefing first, with the team. I’ll announce it then.”

Simmons nodded uncertainly, then slipped out of the room to leave him alone with just the comforting sound of Melinda’s heartbeat on the monitor. He knew exactly who he’d trust to take up the mantle of Director. She was ready, no matter what she thought. He knew.

He just wanted to tell her first.

…

Phil slipped into Daisy’s bunk the next morning, where she was sitting on her laptop. She looked up in greeting, then in alarm when she saw his face. “Melinda’s fine,” he reassured her before she could say anything. She visibly relaxed. “So, what’s up, D.C.?” she asked, closing her laptop and setting it aside.

“Not D.C. anymore,” he responded, sitting next to her on her bed. She furrowed her brows. “Uh, what?”

He swallowed, knowing she’d take the first part of his news harder than anybody. “I’m resigning, Daisy.”

She gaped at him. “What? Why?”

He held up a gentle hand to silence her so he could explain. “Jemma explained that Melinda… it’s not good for her to stay here, underground, cramped. She needs to leave to a safehouse, and she’ll need constant care right now. So I’m going with her,” he told her softly. Daisy stared at him, failing to hide a crestfallen expression. “How far?” She asked quietly, her voice constricted.

“LA.” Her eyes widened considerably. “But it’s only an hour away by quinjet. You guys can visit any day you want.”

“So, what, are you retiring forever?” She asked, pulling her legs into her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins. He chuckled. “Too young for that, thanks. We’ll be back, when she's better.”

She nodded stiffly, but he could tell she was blinking away tears. “Come here,” he said, opening his arms. They hadn’t hugged since before Lincoln, but she didn’t hesitate before crawling into his arms and pressing her forehead to his chest. He held her, rocking her back and forth slightly as she let out the tension she’d been holding since before the framework. “I’ll call everyday,” he said quietly. She hiccuped. “Take care of May, okay? She- she didn’t deserve this.”

He rested his chin on her head. “She didn’t,” he agreed sadly. “I will.” He waited a couple of minutes so she could calm down before saying, “But I need a predecessor. Remember when I said I recommended you to Talbot as the new director?”

She stilled, then looked up at him, her eyes shining. “No way,” she answered quietly, but more in disbelief than refusal. He chuckled. “If you’re up for it. I wouldn’t trust anybody more than you to reinstate SHIELD and to help the inhuman cause.”

She hung her mouth open, then laughed a little. “Okay.”

“Okay? You’re sure?”

She nodded. “May would want me to say yes.”

“She’s really proud of you, you know. Doesn’t always show it, but…” he trailed off. She snuggled closer into his embrace. “I know,” she whispered. “I just want her to be okay.”

“Me too.”

“And then you’ll admit you love her,” she added flippantly. He choked a little, then chuckled nervously. “What?”

“C’mon, D.C.- or just C., I guess, _wow_ _that’s weird_ \- you obviously love her, and she loves you back.” 

Phil almost laughed. Of course she didn’t. Why would she? Also- he  _ obviously  _ loved her? Great.

He shook his head in response. “Daisy…”

“I won’t press, but just _ letting you know _ ,” she said with a smirk. He shook his head and raised his brows. “Alright, if you think so.”

“I know so.” There was a pause as he held her comfortably, and then- “ _ Omigod, I’m the director of fucking SHIELD. _ ”

…

After announcing his resignation and Daisy’s new position to the core team that had dealt with the framework, he prepared to leave with May.

The safehouse was on a private beach in LA. Who knows why they had such a vacation-centric safe house, but Phil wasn’t about to complain. Simmons and the medical team flew ahead to set up the medical equipment Melinda would need when she’d wake up from her medically induced coma. He got in touch with physical therapists in the area that specialized with patients that had been in comas or medical conditions that had decreased mobility. One of the PTs even used to work at SHIELD before the fall.

The night before they were scheduled to leave via quinjet, Phil was sitting outside Melinda’s room as they woke her up so she could be informed of the situation. One of the medical assistants walked out with a smile much too bright for the situation and informed him that she was awake, but still unable to do much. He was in the room before the medic had even finished talking.

The lights had been dimmed considerably to keep Melinda from getting too overwhelmed. He took quick and gentle steps and sat next to her. She was curled into a ball facing him, a cannula wrapped through her nose and ears. Her eyes were bright and wide but her face was expressionless, but after 30 years with her he could tell exactly how she was feeling.

Melinda May was terrified. He was suddenly glad he’d told Daisy that she couldn’t see her yet. Her, weak and frail like this, chilled him to the core, and he knew she wouldn’t want anybody seeing her so vulnerable, even Daisy.

“Hey,” he said softly, cautiously putting a hand on her shoulder. When she didn’t flinch, he kept stroking her.   
  


She made a little noise at the back of her throat; her eyes conveying panic and confusion. 

“You were in the framework for so long; your muscles don’t work properly anymore, Melinda. So I’m taking you to a safehouse in Los Angeles for you to recover.”

She swallowed and blinked twice. She didn’t make any noises of complaint, so he guessed she wasn’t opposed to the idea. “We’re leaving tomorrow; I just wanted to explain the situation.”

She nodded stiffly. It wasn’t more than a jerk of her head, but he could tell what she’d been aiming for.

“Daisy’s planning on visiting once you feel a little better,” he told her, taking one of her trembling hands in his own. She squeezed it. “I’ll be living with you.. In a separate room of course. You need somebody with you all the time just in case, and I know you trust me and you wouldn’t want it to be some random person…” he rambled, cutting off when she squeezed his hand again. He met her eyes, and they were much warmer than before. ‘Thank you’, she seemed to say.

“I’m sorry,” he told her quietly. “This was my fault- I should've found you sooner-” she squeezed his hand much harder this time. He chuckled wryly. “Yeah, I know what you’d say. That I have a ginormous guilt complex.” Another squeeze.

“Sorry. For everything.” He sighed. Not having much else to say, he just stayed with her until she fell asleep, taking a happy note of the barely noticeable smile she wore.

…

Melinda had been loaded, unconscious, onto the quinjet already, along with some of her belongings. They were in the hangar, practically ready to go. 

Phil stood outside of the cargo door with Daisy. “I’m really going to miss you,” she sniffled.

“I’ll see you in a week,” he reminded her. She looked down at her combat boots. “I’m going to call you every day. Every hour, probably, to ask what you would do in my position.”

He nodded. “I’ll help you, but you’re your own person. Don’t base your decisions off of mine.”

“I still don’t think I can do this,” she told him honestly. He smiled and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You have the whole team helping you and supporting you.”

She shrugged. “Then why aren’t they director?”

He chuckled. “Because there’s nobody I trust more to do this. You’ll do great.”

She shifted her weight, then abruptly hugged him. He held her close, one hand cradling her head as she buried her face into his shoulder. “Have fun in retirement,” she said thickly. He laughed. “Again- not that old.”

She pulled away, wiping her eyes. “Bye, A.C.,” she gave him a watery smile.

“You’ll do amazing as director,” he promised her. “See you, Daisy.” She waved to him as he boarded the quinjet, the cargo door closing behind him. He sat next to Melinda the entire ride, holding her hand.

  
  
  



End file.
